How deep state survives in Kenya

The ‘deep state’ may have been once bar talk in Kenya’s politics. But new details show that it has been Kenya’s political culture since independence, surviving by ensuring rivals do not get to political office.

On Wednesday, two civil society groups in Africa published separate but related studies on the art of state capture and democracy capture, two evils seen as ailing Kenya and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

The organisations, the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and Democracy in Africa (DIA), say in their reports that most African countries are now slaves to a few individuals or private entities who ensure each elected government serves their needs, regardless of whether they are voters or were elected.

“Democracy capture occurs when a few individuals or sections of a supposedly democratic polity are able to systematically appropriate to themselves the institutions and processes as well as dividends of democratic governance,” says one report, “Democracy Capture in Africa”, published by CDD-Ghana.

State capture

State capture, on the other hand, is “a situation where powerful individuals, institutions, companies or groups within or outside a country use corruption to shape a nation’s policies, legal environment and economy to benefit their own private interests”.

State capture can broadly be understood as the disproportionate and unregulated influence of special-interest groups over decision-making processes, with these interest groups bending state laws, policies, and regulations to their will. The phenomenon of “democracy capture” is therefore a subset of the broader one of state capture.

Compiled from interviews, secondary data and network mapping, a team of 10 scholars analysing politics in several sub-Saharan countries say they found an entrenched culture where private dealers, often unelected individuals or entities, control both political and economic decisions.

In Kenya, those groups include family members, friends, political groups or even private dealers who have been around since independence. And it begins with elections. The report says elections have been used by the deep state to earn legitimacy, even though the polls themselves have largely been low on credibility.

Status quo

“These elections have largely been rituals that the democracy capturers use to coronate incumbents or maintain the status quo. The manipulation of elections has stripped them of efficacy to such an extent that they hardly matter as a mechanism for the people to hold government to account,” the report says of Kenya’s history of elections.

Starting with politicians who start and dissolve political parties, the report says Kenya’s elections have sustained the deep state because the financial support, personnel to deploy and the security provisions for electoral managers is skewed to favour those in power or with money.

This in turn created what is known as “infrastructure for capturing democracy” that insulates elites to stay in power even when not elected.

“This infrastructure, or deep state, consists of an informal system of governance constructed around public and private institutions, including the Provincial (and its successor the National) Administration… It is a well-entrenched and resilient oligarchy whose power is inter-generational and largely defies presidential term limits.”

Elections inn Africa

The reports, the other being “The Shadow State in Africa” by the DIA, focused on the roles played by entities behind the scenes in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique, Angola, Uganda, Ghana, Benin, Zambia, Zimbabwe, DRC, South Africa and the Republic of Congo.

And the findings varied, often showing that even where there are credible elections, the real ‘winners’ are always a few people.

In countries like Uganda, being close to a ‘Museveni Axis’ can help one survive political tides at the high table. In the DRC, being in the military or presidency helps you control mining resources, which are often smuggled. In Kenya and Zambia, security forces play minor elite roles, but major national political parties or senior roles in government and private business associations are influential.

In Kenya, where rebel groups do not exist and hold no influence as in the DRC, shadow state activities focus more “on the monopolisation of political and economic power in the hands of a small number of elected and unelected officials,” says the report by DIA.

Political culture

“This kind of shadow state is best understood as an informal network of domestic and international actors, most of whom are unelected or are not operating in their official capacity, who collude to assert and maintain political, social and economic control for their own benefit.”

Political leaders have recently argued that Kenya’s legal regime itself allows winner-take-all contests, dangerous for the country as it forces political leaders to whip up their tribes into voting blocs.

Prof Migai Akech, a Kenyan law scholar who authored a chapter in the reports, says there is little sign the current political culture in Kenya will change soon, because elites benefit from it.

“I am not very optimistic that we will dismantle this infrastructure in the next decade,” Prof Migai said at the launch of the reports on Wednesday.

“They have a long history, deeply entrenched and established networks,” he said of the deep state players.

Prof Akech, who was recently a friend of the court in the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) when it was before the Court of Appeal, says that the BBI’s proposed solution to electoral problems in Kenya may still bring minimal profit to the people, because it seeks to expand the executive to allow more political appointments who work at the mercy of the President.

Public participation 

The reports are based on terminologies that have gained traction since former South African President Jacob Zuma was ensnared in a scandal with the Gupta brothers, infamous because of the State Capture inquiry.

At the launch of the reports, some scholars argued the term state capture may be one-sided, as it implies that the government and its people are always a victim.

“It ignores the fact that in African countries today, there are instances where government officials have engaged in export-import businesses and other investments,” said Prof Anne Pitcher of the University of Michigan during the virtual launch.

“We need to find out how elites in African countries are co-investing in business networks based abroad, and how they are investing their assets.”

Nonetheless, the speakers said that leaving state capture and the control of democracy to elites has contributed to corruption. Simpler things like independent courts, a free press and devolved governance or more public participation may help weaken the deep state with time, the authors suggest. 

“Shadow states and democracy capture are the root causes of corruption, inequality and development failure,” said Kenyan anti-corruption activist John Githongo, who argued that elites use their loot to launder themselves.